Log In Home About The Press Our Books Meet The Editor Submissions News Contact More VERVE POETRY BOOKSHOP Contact Us We want to be able to connect you with all your poetry favourites. If you don't find the title you want on our site, please contact us below with your request and we will do our best to get it for you. And we will consider making it part of our regular range. We will aim to be back in touch within 24 hours of receiving your request. Thankyou! Submit We'll be back in touch soon! VERVE Poetry Bookshop 07713236205 info@vervepoetrybookshop.com Join our mailer to keep in touch Sign Up © 2025 by VERVE Poetry Bookshop

Our offers: While we won’t be the cheapest online, we hope you will be temped by our discounted pre-orders, our generous stamp & save scheme and our great value subscriptions - see below for more info. Each month, our Collection of the Month will be one of the leading new titles of the day and will be sold at a discounted price for the whole of that month. Important contempory poets such as Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Helen Mort & Anthony Joseph will feature. Our Collection of the Month Subscription offers either the first six or all twelve of our chosen collections for the year at a generous subscription price. Alternatively, our choice of Bundle Offers will offer selections of four titles that we think work well together and work out at a great saving on the price of buying all the titles separately. These will chop and change so keep your eyes peeled to see what's what. On top of this, the majority of our pre-orders will be available at a generous discount to those who purchase before publication. This may include future Collections of the Month but will absolutely include some of the most important new books as are announced, from poets whose work we've long admired - people like Theresa Lola, Raymond Antrobus and Romalyn Ante, and many, many more. Our postage costs will be similarly generous: a flat UK rate of £2.99 on ALL packages which will obviously prove a better deal the more books you order in one go! There is no limit on this! (For non-UK it is £12.99) Finally and most importantly, we will be running a really generous VERVE Stamp and Save Scheme , whereby you will receive a digital stamp each and every time you spend £10 on books at the online store (as well as two stamps for £20, three stamps for £30 as so on.) Once you have reached a total of eight stamps, you will automatically receive £10 off your next purchase at VERVE Poetry Bookshop. As we say, we can't be the cheapest online shop for poetry books, with the majority of our books selling at Recommended Retail Price (RRP) but we can try to find ways to make shopping with us for your poetry worth your while. We hope you agree and will make us your number one online bookshop for purchasing your poetry!

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VERVE POETRY BOOKSHOP Log In VERVE HOME About The Press Our Books Submissions News Meet The Editor Contact More Submissions News for 2026 We are thrilled to say we will be OPEN for pamphlet submissions throughout April 2026!!! For the first times since April 2024, we at VERVE Poetry Press are opening a month long submissions window to find a limited number of poetry pamphlet manuscripts. Those that are successful will either be published later in 2026 or early in our 2027 season. Unfortunately we aren't able to open for full length poetry collections this year. Our submissions window for pamphlets will open at 0.01am on April 1st 2026 and close at midnight on April 30th. THE DETAILS What are we looking for? We are after pamphlet* length works to add to our Michael Marks Publishers Award winning series or poetry pamphlets. Manuscripts should be complete although we will consider high quality early drafts. How would we like them? Manuscripts should be attached to your application email as a separate file on either Word or PDF. Send your submission to us at mail@vervepoetryfestival.com marked clearly as a Pamphlet Submission What would we like with them? We would like your manuscript to be accompanied by a one page document detailing your poetic journey so far - favourite poetry books read, favourite poetry performers watched, favourite poetry events attended actually or remotely – (you should have answers for all of these) - alongside a full list of workshops attended, publishing history, readings given – (it matters less if you don’t have answers for all of these). And finally details of the ambitions you have for the book you hope to make and what things you intend to do personally, outside of submitting to Verve, to help it reach a wide audience. One page is the maximum allowed for this part of the submission. PLEASE NOTE: Those with difficulties accessing physical poetry books, performances and workshops due to disabilities or limited incomes can and should absolutely still please apply. Tell us instead about online readings and events you have attended and enjoyed and which of the mountains of free online poems you have read, loved and been influenced by. What kind of things do we like? If you know us at all, you will know the answer to this. Like our sister festival, we have a love and respect for poetry in all its forms and from all sources. We love poetry designed for the page that is read-out-able and poetry designed to perform that is readable in book form. We love poetry shows, long narrative poems, short quirky poems, one poem manuscripts, seventy poem manuscripts, dramatic poems, quiet poems, free-form poems, fully formed poems, heavily edited poems, poems written in one go. But they must be excellent, generous, open-minded, ambitious and informed. We not only welcome but would encourage submissions from poets who identify as BAME and/or LGBTQ+. And we are also keen to see manuscripts that involve more than one language or which are bi-lingual. What don’t we mind? We don’t mind if you submit titles already submitted elsewhere – but do tell us if they are successful and you need to withdraw your submission with us. What we will and won’t do for you There is no charge to submit to Verve Poetry Press during this window. Similarly we do not insist that you buy a book from our website before submitting (although we truly hope you will have already or will do soon). Also those who are chosen to publish with us won’t be charged for the privilege. Instead, they will be paid royalties on the books we sell and have the opportunity to buy copies at a deep discount to sell themselves. But all that is for later once this process is over. We will give you an initial answer on the success or otherwise of your submission within twelve weeks of the submission window closing . Unfortunately we won’t be able to give any feedback on submissions which are unsuccessful. And finally... If you are unsuccessful, please don’t give up on your poetry! We are very particular about what we publish and have an aesthetic that we are aiming to achieve. Your poems may well be accepted elsewhere having been unsuccessful with us. Take a breath, get some input, and carry on! We are excited and look forward to reading your wonderful work! *A note on Pamphlets This might well be different at other presses. At Verve, our pamphlets are generally between 22 and 36 pages long and contain between 20 and 30 poems. If in doubt shorter is better! For any collection of poems you need to look beyond the individual poems and begin to think of them as a group that work together and influence each other - about the pace and movement of the whole work as well as the elements within it. Poems can be as short or as long as they need to be, but if they are all one length that might (but won’t necessarily) become irksome for the reader. Good luck! INTRODUCING: New for 2026 Our online four week Pamphlet Short Course Limited to 12 places - running in the evenings on Wednesdays in June (March, April and May have all SOLD OUT!)* MARCH SOLD OUT APRIL SOLD OUT MAY SOLD OUT MAY II SOLD OUT Book on to JUNE At the stage where you are considering putting together a pamphlet or are about to begin? Or perhaps you've written a pamphlet but need some help understanding how successful you have been before you submit it? Or just interested to hear more about the process? Ahead of our forthcoming open submissions window for pamphlets , join this lively four week short course run by Birmingham and Michael Marks Award winning publisher VERVE Poetry Press for a deep dive into all things pamphlet! Session 1: Thinking About Pamphlets in Detail This introductory session will cover questions like, what makes a great pamphlet (incl recommended reading list) and what a list like this can teach us. We’ll look at different publishers and their expectations for pamphlet submissions – how can you communicate your idea and make it stand out (incl how to keep on a publisher’s good side!) With plenty of time for questions and discussion on good practice and common pitfalls, you’ll leave with a firm idea of how to move forward. NB After this session you will receive three pamphlets to read and think about before the next session. Session 2: Looking at Pamphlets In the spirit of 'you can't do what you don't know' in this session we will look at the three exemplary pamphlets (which you will have been sent to read before hand). We will ask things like - what is the narrative arc? What role do the first and last poem perform? Which are the key poems and what do they do for the whole? What we would change if anything? We will discuss what learnings we can take forward from the session to guide our approach to our own work in forming a collection. Session 3: Designing and Submitting your Pamphlet In this session, we’ll look at good ideas for sequencing a pamphlet. Which rules about putting pamphlets together are helpful and which are less so? How can we understand what each poem is doing for the entire book? We will look closely at the pitfalls and also the opportunities that occur when poems are placed alongside each other. How can you position your poems to really utilise their power as a group? What changes might need to be made to your poems now that they are part of a larger whole? We will also look in more detail at how to submit your work - the do's and don't do's of this process, and help get us all inside of what opportunities for publishing pamphlets are out there and when? NB After this session you will be encouraged to send an early draft of your pamphlet for one to one discussion. Session 4: Pamphlet One to One - One hour either during the day or evening during the week 20th-24th April to take a detailed look at your pamphlet so far. This session will help you to produce a concrete plan for making your pamphlet even better than it already is, so that you can begin to submit it with confidence. Our pamphlet short course will be run by VERVE Poetry Press editor Stuart Bartholomew. NB June course attendees will have an opportunity to submit LATE to our pamphlet submission window! MARCH SOLD OUT APRIL SOLD OUT MAY SOLD OUT MAY II SOLD OUT Book on to JUNE VERVE Poetry Bookshop 07713236205 info@vervepoetrybookshop.com Join our mailer to keep in touch Sign Up © 2025 by VERVE Poetry Bookshop

About us From its humble beginnings in Birmingham Waterstones, VERVE Poetry Festival has always been about bookselling. Our festival bookshop has long been a mecca for contemporary poetry, stocking both the books of our visiting poets as well as what we consider to be the most important new and older books in contemporary poetry. It is rare to see a poetry section so well curated and so excitedly put together. From Imtiaz Dharker to Liz Berry, from Kim Addonizio to Frank O'Hara, from 100 Queer Poems to Staying Alive, from local poets like Roy McFarlane to national treasures such as Joelle Taylor, there's something for everyone at our festival bookshop! It seemed obvious that we should put our bookshop online so that it is there to be enjoyed all year round - presenting a curated selection of the best in contemporary poetry along with some of the poets of the past who made today’s poetry possible. Add in a dose of How To Write Poetry books, a hefty selection of imported favourites, and the books that we deem to be the classics of the modern poetry era - we hope you will love VERVE Poetry Bookshop. And while we won’t be the cheapest online, we hope you will be temped by our discounted pre-orders, our generous stamp & save scheme and our great value subscriptions. Click through to read more… ABOUT VERVE Poetry Festival: Birmingham’s own VERVE Festival of Poetry and Spoken Word is based at Birmingham Hippodrome and online! Over the years, VERVE has become synonymous with a lively and celebratory approach to programming poetry of every different kind, whether it be raucous performance poetry events, quiet reading events, studious workshops, mind-blowing dramatic poetry, collaborative work and open mic. We encourage our audience to see their favourite poets and try something new, to join in and create or listen and learn. Most importantly, ALL are welcome at our poetry party of national standing. Whether new to poetry or an old hand, there will be something for everyone to enjoy at VERVE!

VERVE Poetry Press Bookshop at VERVE Poetry Bookshop VERVE POETRY BOOKSHOP Log In VERVE HOME About The Press Our Books Meet The Editor Submissions News Contact More Jump Right In Start Browsing Start Browsing Our Bestsellers SEE ALL What She Said - Ilisha Thiru Purcell Price £8.99 Add to Cart Postcolonial Banter - Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan Price £10.99 Add to Cart Rocksong - Golnoosh Nour Price £10.99 Add to Cart Eighty Four : Poems on Male Suicide, Grief and Hope - Helen Calcutt Price £11.99 Add to Cart Tapping At Glass -Tim Tim Cheng Price £7.99 Add to Cart Truffle Hound - Luke Kennard Price £9.00 Add to Cart Our Newest Titles SEE ALL Well Done, You Didn’t Die - Max Wallis Price £8.99 Add to Cart How To Train Your Dragon -Rue Collinge Price £8.99 Add to Cart dance as if - Katrina Naomi Price £8.99 Add to Cart How to Make a Paper Grenade - Glyn Edwards Price £8.99 Add to Cart (Save £3) Somewhere There's a Sky For Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from India and UK Regular Price £12.99 Sale Price £9.99 Add to Cart Red Strings Between -Rachael Li Ming Chong Price £8.99 Add to Cart How to Leave a Body - Holly Winter-Hughes Price £11.99 Add to Cart SEE ALL Coming Soon Quick View Pre-Order Little Bitch - Ellora Sutton Price £11.99 Pre-Order Quick View (Unrequited) Love Collection –Jemima Hughes Price £11.99 Add to Cart Quick View Uniform Factory (2025 Edition) - Louise Fazackerley Price £8.99 Add to Cart Quick View How To Train Your Dragon -Rue Collinge Price £8.99 Add to Cart Quick View (Save £2) Dad Vs. Dad [Gift Edition] - Helen Mort Regular Price £12.00 Sale Price £10.00 Add to Cart Quick View How to Make a Paper Grenade - Glyn Edwards Price £8.99 Add to Cart Our Full Collections SEE ALL Feral - Jamie Thrasivoulou Price £10.99 Add to Cart My Deep and Gorgeous Thirst - Ellen McAteer Price £11.99 Add to Cart Khamoshi by Qudsia Akhtar Price £9.99 Add to Cart sikfan glaschu - Sean Wai Keung Price £11.99 Add to Cart Afterlife As Trash - Rushika Wick Price £9.99 Add to Cart Besharam - Nafeesa Hamid Price £9.99 Add to Cart Our Pamphlets SEE ALL Rustlings - Gabrielle Tse Price £8.99 Add to Cart Artisanal Slush - Ellora Sutton Price £7.99 Add to Cart Human Body Is A Hive - Erica Gillingham Price £7.99 Add to Cart Bird Cherry - Roshni Gallagher Price £7.99 Add to Cart Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed - Susie Wilson Price £8.99 Add to Cart time difference - Jennifer Wong Price £8.99 Add to Cart Our Anthologies SEE ALL Quick View Pre-Order VERVE Book of LOVE Poetry -Victoria Kennefick Ed. Price £11.99 Pre-Order Quick View (Save £3) Somewhere There's a Sky For Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from India and UK Regular Price £12.99 Sale Price £9.99 Add to Cart Quick View Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology - Jennifer Wong Ed. Price £14.99 Add to Cart Quick View Eighty Four : Poems on Male Suicide, Grief and Hope - Helen Calcutt Price £11.99 Add to Cart Quick View Across Borders: An anthology of poems from the commonwealth Price £10.00 Add to Cart Quick View Language Is A Queer Thing - Various Price £7.00 Add to Cart Quick View Wild Dreams and Louder Voices: The Poetry Jam Anthology Price £9.99 Add to Cart Quick View It All Radiates Outwards: The Verve Anthology Of City Poems Price £9.99 Add to Cart Join our mailer to keep in touch Sign Up © 2025 by VERVE Poetry Bookshop 07713236205 info@vervepoetrybookshop.com VERVE Poetry Bookshop

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VERVE POETRY BOOKSHOP Log In VERVE HOME About The Press Our Books Submissions News Meet The Editor Contact More Print your book Want a book but don't want the faff of finding a publisher? - Decided to go the self-publishing route, but need someone to spell-check, type-set, design and print your book for you? - Looking for an organisation who know what they're doing and can create something perfect, just for you? We have years of experience designing, type-setting, copy-editing and printing books, but are winding down this side of our activity. But we know people are looking for an easy a responsive way of getting their books printed to sell at events or give to friends and family. Got a manuscript that's edited to your satisfaction, but need help getting it into book form? We can make the whole process easy for you and deliver your copies straight to your door. Get the inside and the outside of your book looking top notch. Work to an agreed timeline and ensure full sign off before going to print. Work through a min two month process from submission to receipt of your books. Rough Price Guideline for 80 page book (to depend on book length, size etc) Type-Setting: £250 Cover Design: £150 Copy Editing: £50 Printing: 50 copies - £200 100 copies - £300 200 copies - £450 TOTAL (80pg, 100 copies) £750 NB Full and exact price communicated before book is committed to. Contact us to discuss your requirements at mail[at]vervepoetryfestival.com VERVE Poetry Bookshop 07713236205 info@vervepoetrybookshop.com Join our mailer to keep in touch Sign Up © 2025 by VERVE Poetry Bookshop

VERVE POETRY BOOKSHOP Log In VERVE HOME About The Press Our Books Submissions News Meet The Editor Contact More Meet the editor Need some feedback on a small group of poems? (Do they work individually? Do they work together? How should I focus my work?) Don’t know what to do for the best to move your poetry forwards and increase your visibility? (Magazines? Competitions? Groups? Workshops? Mentoring? Funding?) Not sure where you have got to and what your priorities should be? We are offering Zoom based one-to-ones with our editor to help you to answer these questions and more! Before the meeting, they will spend some quality time with up to six of your poems, look at your poetry biography to understand what help you have sourced previously and where you are on your journey, ask you to elaborate on the precise help you require and what your current priority for focus is. The session itself will last an hour at a time that is convenient to both you and them. Discussion will be wide ranging, but will focus on coming up with actions and next steps for you to follow. These sessions will be limited in number to four each quarter and will take place in March, June, August and November. They will fill up quickly. The cost of a session is £59.99 . You can book your place by following this link to the sessions page of our shop. We look forward to hearing from you. “Meet the Editor offers a rare opportunity to speak candidly and in depth about both craft and career development. Stuart’s extensive experience as an editor, bookseller and festival director makes for valuable insights and practical, achievable advice. I found my session unexpectedly moving. I came out of it with freshly focused intentions that felt more coherent and realistic.” – Kirsten Luckins BOOK YOUR SPOT VERVE Poetry Bookshop 07713236205 info@vervepoetrybookshop.com Join our mailer to keep in touch Sign Up © 2025 by VERVE Poetry Bookshop

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